https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker2018-11-19T22:13:29.449ZPosts of RCHacker blogGoogle Sites1https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker/67566742283114683722014-02-10T14:56:24.250Z2015-09-28T04:08:17.048Z2015-09-28T04:08:14.993Z026 Facebook, with a broken business model and evidence of fraud is it on the way out?

I found these two videos very interesting by fellow video blogger Veritasium. Not just opinion he has actually done research on Facebook and how it works in the grander scheme of advertising. Interesting to me because I have wasted time trying to reach followers on Facebook, so please in future interact with me on my Youtube channel.

This is not the aborted test of the 22nd of August. It is however some beautiful footage taken from a hexacopter. A great application, small, cheap, disposable and if made right unlikely to damage the rocket in the event of a collision. I really hope they use more of these to get better angles in the future.

Did you know that wind hitting a mountain range creates waves which reach many times higher than the mountain range itself.

Glider pilots have been using these mountain waves to break altitude records for many years, but this team plans to take it to the next level.

Their aim is to fly higher than 90,000ft. That is higher than the U2, even the SR-71.

Imagine a simple autonomous aircraft with the typical set of ardupilot sensors that could sniff out these waves to stay aloft, they could just about be disposable. Seriously the technology is already here.

The Mobius action camera does produce noise on the 433MHz band and 1.1 to 1.3 GHz. Although to prevent it interfering with your 433Mhz control system just move the Mobius action camera away from your antenna about a foot. You can also shield the camera in aluminium foil.

Marc Gmarc@rchacker.comturnigy9xtrustfirebatteryupgrade8https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker/77743944661733983582013-01-02T03:31:20.956Z2014-02-22T08:29:01.548Z2013-02-08T13:25:31.470Z017 Mini Tricopter out of action, for now.

So close to start doing some serious FPV flying and I blow what I think is a motor while testing the Turnigy watt meter. Better while testing than in the air, but still a bummer.

Unfortunately I have no spare motors or ESCs so I have to wait for new ones. I still have plenty of DT750s and F-20A ESCs so it is back to the bench to build a new FPV craft. This time I will be following Davids well proven v2.5 Tricopter design.

Remember these batteries? I used them in my Turnigy 9x battery upgrade. I managed to overcharge the so called "protected" cells. Looking at the revision history this happened late September. So about 2 months ago.

I left the dead cell on my shelf with the intention of doing a teardown at a later date. I never got the chance, the thing exploded.

These are all the bits after I cleaned up an collected them from all parts of the desk, shelf and floor.

Because my desk was such a mess I actually did not notice that anything had happened, I just thought that opossums had been running around above the ceiling as there was black dust over everything.

Then I realised what had happened.

After removing all the non dead battery stuff from the desk this is what was left. Luckily the laptop was elsewhere for the explosion.

Black ash everywhere.

You can see the outline of the tools.

This is over a metre from the source.

This pot got embedded in these pliers.

And my poor TX had a burning bit of battery land on it. This was taken after I scraped all the melted stuff away. Luckily it still works.

And this was the source of the explosion. Obviously there was a fire also, I was lucky my new office did not burn down.

For over two months this cell had just sat around, then one night with no provocation it exploded. Thinking back I must have heard it from the house, the dogs went nuts too. I just thought it was the usual backfiring car or fireworks which happens a lot here in Ecuador.

To be fair I was not using the recommended charger. In fact I just the pair on a 12V 500mA source and relied on the protection circuitry.

I still have the other one from the pair that is now powering a small mp3 player. I will not be using that anymore as I don't want to blow my bollocks off. At a later date I will take it apart to see if it really does have protection circuitry inside. I am guessing not, as I searched hard for the circuitry in the debris. Perhaps it got burnt away, we will see..

With all these multirotors I am spending more time fixing them than flying, so I have decided to lash out and get myself into 3D.

Now that HK have fixed their postal issues I have an EPP Reaktor 3D in the mail. It seems pretty popular and looks to be a nice design, it even has a real airfoil. Something that I can fly in and out of the trees in the small yard and it will not break in a crash.

Don't tell the misses, I'm going to tell her I made it out of scrap foam :).

If you want to support my work here are my affiliate links for the other warehouses. USA, AUS, NL, DE and UK.

Marc Gmarc@rchacker.com025remotecontrolofmultiplegopro2camerasstartandstopbothvideoandphotos2https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker/85768171544130020862013-03-08T03:32:07.806Z2013-06-10T21:18:18.267Z2013-06-10T21:18:16.653Z022 FPV to the edge of space.

Marc Gmarc@rchacker.com022fpvtotheedgeofspace3https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker/27261887928848403682013-05-24T17:40:01.635Z2013-06-10T21:17:48.330Z2013-06-10T21:17:46.207Z024 How to build your own Copter Control 3D.

From what I have seen the OpenPilot boards seems to be the cutting edge for multi-rotor (or anything else) control.

32bit, highly configurable and fast. The project is a labour of love and is under a Creative Commons non-commercial license. This is great but it makes the boards somewhat hard to get hold of. From the openpilot store you can commit kickstarter style to go really bleeding edge with the new Revolution (read up on it first) or wait for a batch of the proven CC3D. The other option is to build one yourself which I think I will attempt once I get to the limits of the KK2 capabilities. Mochaboy built his own and made this really great video:

To see how they perform in the hands of a top pilot check out Juz's channel. This is my favourite:

Enjoy.

Marc Gmarc@rchacker.comhowtobuildyourowncoptercontrol3d5https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker/6906326011865227192013-03-21T01:49:15.856Z2013-03-21T01:49:15.862Z2013-03-21T01:49:15.851Z023 Studying hard and waiting for the mail.

I have been very busy lately reviving my Engineering skills. My background is Aerospace and more so Software Engineering and during my studies we covered every branch of engineering including hardware design. It has been a few years since I worked as a software engineer, and even more since I did any hardware at university. After a number of years travelling and doing completely unrelated jobs. I am amazed how technology has progressed, including the software tools to make things happen. It seems we are in a brave new word where it is affordable to design and get made your own PCBs. Microcontrollers are amazingly cheap and powerful and with an Arduino and a bit of hacking it is possible to do re-flow soldering in a hacked toaster oven. Finally the internet: 95% full of crap but if you search for it you can learn anything.

While some of the RC technology out there is brilliant. FrSky, KK2, OpenPilot are a couple that come to mind. So much of it is just utter crap, cheaply made and full of bugs. There are many products where a bit of good engineering can make a huge difference. FPV gear is one.

So I want to work my ass off and get some products of my own out there. I have many ideas but I'm not going to promise them all at once.

My design philosophy will be: Not what I think you want or even what you think you want, but what I want. If you like it, great. If not tough.

If I go broke trying at least I will have some nice gear. :)

Very early days yet, but I will continue to share my progress on YouTube.

My first set of PCBs (the Switch) is apparently on its way. Unfortunately postage is far too slow and sometimes unreliable to Ecuador... :(

So it turns out that an initial purchase of parts for a prototype run of my diversity board would be in the $500 range. For me is a bit much when I have not even tested the postal system from the states. So I decided to start with a simpler project that has lower initial costs.

Introducing the Switch:

What does it do? It is a multipurpose digital switch. Six high voltage, high current MOSFETs controlled by a microcontroller. There is the provision to accept control signals via PWM, PPM, SPI, serial, I2C or USB. The board has been laid out so it is easy to attach a FrSky D4R-II receiver, OpenLRS or the DIYDrones IMU. Each MOSFET can be controlled via hardware PWM and by combining this with voltage and current sensing a constant voltage or current could be provided to each output. Finally it will be Arduino Leonardo compatible in order to make programming as accessible as possible. Like the Freetronics Leostick (which it is based on) it will be an open hardware design.

I plan to write software so it will be easy for non programmers to quickly configure their RC gear to trigger each switch.

Possible uses:

High power intelligent LED control.

Brushed motor control.

Pyrotechnics ignition.

I have a bit more work to do optimising the layout to make it easy for hand soldering before I will get a prototype PCB batch done. The circuitry for the current sensing is so far untested but the board design allows for a bit of experimentation here.

If you have never heard of it. It is a radio show with two engineers talking about everything electronics. I like it. So far I have listened to the last 10 episodes and the first 15. I still have 100 more to listen to and new ones come each week.

Early episodes are just Chris and Dave chatting away about whatever they can think of. Lately they have been having some very interesting people on as guests. One that my visitors must listen to is when they have Chris Anderson creator of DIY Drones as a guest on the show. If you only listen to one episode then listen to this one:

Dave's EEVBlog originally got me inspired to start my youtube channel. Chris has not really inspired me to do anything yet. At least his voice is slightly less annoying.

Just kidding, listening to both of them has got me seriously thinking about open sourcing my diversity receiver prototype and refining it enough to try and sell it. Chris also runs Chip Report TV, I have only watched a little bit so far. Very niche and technical.

Anyway, The Amp Hour gets a big thumbs up from me. Have a listen. If you do not find it interesting, then you probably should not be here.

Disclaimer: The real reason I wrote this article it to get a mention on their show. :)

It is like a puzzle in a way. My first prototype works well. Components are chosen and I am now designing the PCB. Back to being a real engineer rather than just a hack, love it.

Marc Gmarc@rchacker.comdiversityprogress3https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/rchacker.com/rchacker/87767509967460606562012-12-26T07:08:55.407Z2013-02-08T13:25:23.633Z2013-02-08T13:25:22.317Z016 Successful FPV first steps on the Mini Tricopter.

My first FPV flight was with the flying wing. It was scary, fast and twitchy. At the mercy of the wind and prone to spinning in a stall it was not a pleasant way to learn. I had a very short go on the Bang Buck Quad and then on a tri-copter made from the same hardware. Again the flights were difficult I was too nervous about crashing these heavy beasts and smashing the FPV gear to bits.

So I built from scratch and I built light. Balsa wood and bare electronics. Anyway here is some very amateur filming of my first FPV flight on the Mini Tricopter, as you can see I was pretty pleased with the flight.

Somewhat bigger than a battery exploding. At 6am our local volcano produced a large explosion which shook the house, scared the shit out of me and sent the dogs barking mad. Two hours later ash started falling and then she started erupting in ernest, 24 hours later she is still going strong. Ash clouds fill the sky and there have been several pyroclastic flows.

This graph is from the Ecuadorian Institute of Seismology and Vulcanology. It is one of several such monitoring stations for Tungurahua and it is updated in real time. Their website is full of good information, a big thumbs up to the scientists there. All the red parts I can hear from my house which is 15km away. The nearest town (Banos de Agua Santa) is much closer to the volcano so spare a thought for everyone living there. For them they sweep up the ash and life goes on. I have to go to town to pay some bills and get supplies in case it gets worse. After that its a great reason to work on more articles indoors until the rain washes the ash away. I'd say I will have even more time up my sleeve as they say here "An eruption a day keeps the tourists away."

This is a photo I took December last year, it is a much smaller eruption than the one that is happening right now.

Why post this here? Eventually I would like to fly a drone over Tungurahua. I still have a long way to go but I already have an FPV Raptor as an airframe and an Ardupilot Mega from DIY drones. The summit of Tungurahua is 16,000 feet ASL, and I figure I could start the flight from about half that altitude. Its a big task for a little plane and perhaps impossible but it will be fun trying.

Dave Jones has done an excellent teardown of the Turnigy Accucel 6 charger in his Electrical Engineering Video Blog. Highly reccomended if you are a nerd like me. Lately I have been spending a lot of my spare time watching his videos, hence the lack of updates in the past month. Check it out.

I want to introduce everyone to Alex, aka IBCrazy. Among the FPV crowd he should be knighted. He has shared his knowledge for practically nothing and done a lot of research into making these antennas and making them as easy as possible to build.

He has instructions for quite a few antenna types that have different characteristics. Cloverleaf, Skew-planar and cross-hair are a few and will probably be my choice for FPV work.

I built this one to improve our wireless coverage here at home, I chose it because it is linearly polarised and directional. We
have lots of jungle trees in our garden and I can now enjoy wifi
anywhere on the property.

Sony Super HAD camera, 5.8GHz 200mW TX, 9V UBEC and 3.3V linear regulator. Frame is made up of two 5V fans, nylon screws and spacers. It is a little bit porky at 59 grams but with the regulators and cooling I think that is not too bad. I have tried it on the Quad, but I would like something more stable to learn FPV on. Time to build a tricopter.

I am amazed at the Ecuadorian mail system. My Hobbyking HD Wing Camera II arrived in less than 2 weeks. After a quick test to see if it works I promptly dismantled it.

Unfortunately my initial impressions are that it does not look great for FPV. It seems to struggle with rapid light changes. Once I have the FPV gear built I will test it more thoroughly and compare it to a GoPro, Sony Super HAD, Olympus Tough 8010 and Canon SX30is. For now I think instead I will use it to film hummingbirds. I do a little bit of photography here in my garden and progressing to video should be fun.

The Bang Buck Quad build notes are finished and I have been having a great time flying it. Out of the initial batch of 24 1047 props I am down to 4. I will have to tone it down a bit and try out the other controllers I have. Good news is I found a new cheaper source of 1045 props on Ebay at a $1.20 each. They are in the mail and they even come in pink.